Mapping Ancient Africa Quaternary International special issue article #8
Open access:
Neumann, F. H., Finch, J., Hahn, A., Miller, C. S., Scott, L., Schefuß, E., Dupont, L., Cawthra, H. C., & Engelbrecht, F. (2025). Vegetation and climate dynamics in a 16,600-year marine sequence offshore Mozambique in Delagoa Bight, south-eastern Africa. Quaternary International, 747, 109956. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2025.109956
To find the complete list of articles in the Mapping Ancient Africa special issue of Quaternary International click here.
Mapping Ancient Africa Quaternary International special issue article #6
Hlophe B. & Bamford M.K. (2025) Charcoal insights on the vegetation, climate and subsistence patterns at Wonderwerk Cave. Quaternary International728,109755. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2025.109755
To find the complete list of articles in the Mapping Ancient Africa special issue of Quaternary International click here.
Chevalier, M., Gosling, W.D., Hooghiemstra, H., Cartapanis, O., Chase, B.M. & Kaboth-Bahr, S. (2025) Eccentricity-driven glacial climate variability and its influence on speciation in the tropical Andes. Quaternary Science Advances 100278. DOI: 10.1016/j.qsa.2025.100278
Mapping Ancient Africa Quaternary International special issue article #5
Kiely, R.E., Paine, A.R., McMichael, C.H. & Gosling, W.D. (2025) Heat, hydroclimate and herbivory: A late-Pleistocene record of environmental change from tropical western Africa. Quaternary International 717, 109636. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2024.109636
To find the complete list of articles in the Mapping Ancient Africa special issue of Quaternary International click here.
Ivory, S.J., MacDougal, E., Mason, A., Pereboom, E., Garelick, S., Ficken, K., Wooller, M.J., Nakileza, B. & Russell, J. (2024) Highland forest dynamics across equatorial East Africa during the end of the African humid period. Quaternary International. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2024.10.007
Heijink, B.M., Zwarts, A., Witteveen, N.H., Watson, J., Ebbenhorst, A., Veenman, F., Kessel, M., León-Yánez, S., Guevara-Andino, J., Endara, M., Rivas-Torres, G., Bush, M.B. & McMichael, C.N.H. (2024) Past fire and vegetation change in the hyperdiverse forests of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Plants 13. DOI: 10.3390/plants13152048
Hello Ecology of the Past readers, my name is Jelle Kraak and I’m currently doing a research project for my MSc Biological Sciences (University of Amsterdam) supervised by William Gosling (University of Amsterdam), Jemma Finch (University of KwaZulu-Natal), and Trevor Hill (University of KwaZulu-Natal). The project is entitled: “Assessing the effect of human induced fire regime changes on vegetation in the Drakensberg mountains”. During the project I will visit South Africa to work at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and visit field site thanks to partial funding from the Amsterdam University Funds.
Research project outline
As many of you know, humans have been interacting with the environment for millennia in various ways. One of the ways in which humans interact with the environment is through the ignition of fires. By doing so, humans may change fire regimes (fire frequency, severity and/or intensity), which in turn can cause changes in vegetation composition and structure. By using a combination of phytolith (local vegetation) and charcoal (fire) data from two sediment cores obtained from wetland environments in the Drakensberg mountains, we aim to assess the effect of fire regime changes on vegetation over the last 6000 years.
The phytoliths (biogenic silica microfossils) allow for the reconstruction of the past vegetation. Charcoal fragments characterize all aspects of past fire regimes: (i) frequency (time series analysis of charcoal data), (ii) severity (abundance of charcoal in samples reflecting biomass consumed), and (iii) intensity (spectral properties of individual charcoal fragments reflecting combustion temperature).
The most interesting part of this project (in my humble opinion) is that this study is the first to use micro-Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (µFTIR) to reconstruct fire temperatures from field samples ánd combine these accurately reconstructed temperatures with local vegetation data! It is important to accurately estimate fire temperatures, as the temperature of a fire dictates the type of plant materials which are consumed in a fire (the higher the temperature, the greater the proportion of woody material burning up). Similar studies have been conducted previously, however, these studies compared fire severity i.e. total burnt biomass with vegetation data. Although this works decently, total burnt biomass is not an accurate representation of fire intensity or temperature, as at very high temperatures biomass turns to ash, which cannot be detected in sediment cores. Through parameterizing both the vegetation changes and the fire regime we will provide a comprehensive picture of how changing human fire use practices modified the vegetation. We anticipate that: (i) a decrease in fire intensity resulted in woody encroachment of the surrounding vegetation, which was concomitant with the arrival of agropastoralists c. 600 years ago, and (ii) a shift in the proportion of C3 and C4 grass species in reaction to temperature changes in the Drakensberg mountains.
On Friday 24 May 2024 the Palynologische Kring (Dutch palynological society) held a seminar series and laboratory workshop at the Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (University of Amsterdam). During the afternoon we had the annual meeting of the society, the presentation of our MSc Thesis prize, four seminars and two laboratory demonstrations. The MSc thesis prize “Florschütz Award” was won by Caroline Goossens (VU Amsterdam) for her thesis entitle: “An Eemian-Early Weichselian sequence in the Amersfoort Basin, the Netherlands”; the project was supervised by Natalie Van der Putten, Cees Kasse and Jeroen Schokker. We hope that Caroline will present her thesis at a future Palynologishe Kring meeting.
Teye Aukes presenting on the diatoms of ancient Rome
The talk series was kicked off by Nina Witteveen (University of Amsterdam) who presented part of her PhD thesis (currently awaiting defense), entitled: “Long-term forest recovery in Amazonia insights from phytolith analysis”. Nina discussed the impact of past peoples on the vegetation of Suriname based on her work identifying phytoliths in soil samples collected at varying distances from an archaeological site. The second talk was given my Amanda Henry (Leiden University) who demonstrated how the analysis of starch grains extracted from archaeological context can provide insights in to past diets. She used these evidences to suggest that early humans and Neanderthals had a similar diversity of plants in their diets. The third talk was given by University of Amsterdam MSc researcher Teye Aukes and focused upon his identification of diatoms from an swampy lagoon environment near Ostia (Italy). He drew conclusions from these data about the antiquity of salt production in ancient Rome. The final talk was given online by Welmoed Out (Moesgaard Museum) who presented a detailed analysis of inter- and intra-analyst variability in phytolith morphometric analysis.
After the seminars we moved upstairs to the microscope laboratory where Nina Witteveen and Ana Smuk (University of Groningen) showed off phytoliths from their study site in South America and the Netherlands.
Some of the Palynologische Kring members enjoying some refreshment after the event.
Alfred Houngnon was awarded an INQUA Fellowship in 2024 to develop his work on past environmental change in the Dahomey Gap (western Africa). Through the project Alfred is making a series of videos about his fellowship journey. In the first video Alfred introduced his project and collaborators (click here to watch the first part). In the two latest instalments (below) Alfred explains: (i) one of his key methodological approaches (modern pollen trapping), and (ii) the modern vegetation of the region and current threats to the vegetation.
Ecology of the past 